Will Dallas ban out-of-school suspensions for students?

The pandemic and a national reckoning over racial justice are fueling some Dallas school leaders’ vision of eliminating nearly all out-of-school suspensions for students.

This exclusionary punishment has long been used disproportionately against Black children, and Black boys in particular, local and national data repeatedly shows.

And Dallas ISD continues to suspend students during the pandemic — albeit only in a few cases — with racial disparities persisting, according to data presented during Thursday’s district board briefing.

DISD leaders suspended 15 children during the fall 2020 semester, one-third of whom were Black boys. By comparison, roughly 5,000 students received out-of-school suspensions in fall 2019, and more than half were Black. About 22% of DISD students are African American.

“Even if one child has been suspended this year, it’s one too many. How are we suspending kids during a pandemic?” said Andrew Hairston, director of the Education Justice Project at Texas Appleseed, after reviewing the data.

That question has been on DISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa’s mind, too. At a recent panel hosted by The Dallas Morning News’ Education Lab, he said that, in some ways, schools should never go back to 100% normal after COVID-19, including that “we should never suspend a kid again.”

He’s now pushing his district leadership team to answer the question: Why should we ever suspend a student in the future?

Because of the district’s COVID-19 response, he said, “we have these devices, we have this infrastructure” that allows for remote learning. Even if a student must be taken out of class, he said, he or she shouldn’t be idle.

“We have to figure out a system for students to stay engaged in learning even when they misbehave,” Hinojosa said. “Status quo is not acceptable. By August, I need a new plan.”

Board members discussed changing disciplinary methods in June — shortly after George Floyd’s death in police custody in Minneapolis. Trustees questioned whether DISD should ban most suspensions, with some arguing the practice contributes to the criminalization of students of color.

Dallas was among the first in Texas to prohibit kicking out kids in prekindergarten through second grade except in the most extreme cases, which later became state law.

The district began implementing other changes in the past few months, including increasing mental health services and providing new staff training, intended to eliminate disparities between Black students and their peers when it comes to discipline.

But DISD officials said Thursday that it’s hard to truly assess their progress because it’s such an atypical school year. Still, they’re encouraged by some of the early signs.

Limited information exists on school discipline during the COVID-19 pandemic that’s caused many students to learn remotely at home. Some high-profile cases across the country garnered swift condemnation — such as when a 9-year-old boy in Louisiana was suspended after a teacher reported a BB gun on his video screen during class.

Research drawing on national data from the 2015-16 school year estimated that kids lost more than 11 million instructional days due to out-of-school suspensions. With students already falling behind academically because of COVID-19 school closures, advocates say continuing to remove youngsters from class via suspension could trigger even more severe learning loss.

“With mitigating learning loss being our biggest challenge, what message are we sending if we’re still using out-of-school suspensions as a consequence?” Nancy Tien, a Dallas CORE organizer, told DISD trustees.

Dallas officials say the reasons Black children are overrepresented in suspensions is, in part, due to educators’ unconscious bias. African American youngsters are identified as “emotionally disturbed” at a higher rate than other demographic groups. Students in special education also are overrepresented in the discipline data.

Michelle Brown, DISD’s special education director, said the district revamped its policies around identifying students as emotionally disturbed. A review committee must now weigh in on each suggested case.

“It ensures we’re not biased in our judgment,” she said.

Last year, 116 students were identified as emotionally disturbed, and 56% were Black. So far this year, 20 students have been newly identified, and 35% are Black.

The district set a goal of eliminating the gap between African American students newly identified as “disturbed,” compared to their peer groups, by June 2022. By the same deadline, the district hopes to have reduced disparities in suspension rates, too.

Hairston and other advocates want to see DISD extend its ban on suspensions through the 12th grade. They also want the district to eliminate exceptions to the out-of-school suspension rule, which states a child can still be removed for bringing weapons or drugs to school or committing assault.

“Such audacious steps are especially necessary during the time of the coronavirus pandemic, where so many young people are grappling with significant trauma and mass loss,” three advocacy groups wrote in a letter to trustees.

Many students in Dallas and across the country have watched parents lose jobs or grandparents get sick from the coronavirus, all while dealing with profound isolation.

DISD officials said examples of why a student may get suspended this year include bullying, fighting, causing a major disruption, harassment or having a knife. An out-of-school suspension is “not a choice for a consequence for virtual learners,” according to district spokeswoman Robyn Harris.

The district is convening a task force to consider the future of discipline in the district. Some trustees appeared eager Thursday to move forward with the debate on a suspension ban.

“It seems to me that when we suspend a kid out of school, that’s the equivalent of us washing our hands and saying we give up on that kid, we don’t need that kid to be educated,” trustee Dustin Marshall said. “That, I think, runs antithetical to our mission and our vision as a school district.”

Richard Welsh, an education policy professor at New York University, said COVID-19 presented schools nationwide with the opportunity to reimagine school discipline. Unfortunately, he said, that conversation has been overshadowed by the debate about how to safely reopen schools.

He’s less worried about discipline trends this year and more about what will happen in the future, when more and more students return to class in person and burned-out teachers try to catch them up. Now is the time for districts to craft proactive strategies, he said.

Hairston is hopeful that Dallas will be a leader, as it was when it came to banning most suspensions for its youngest learners.

“Having that come from the second-largest district in the state would be a significant statement,” he said, “and would inspire so much movement across the state and nation.”

The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.

The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from The Beck Group, Bobby and Lottye Lyle, The Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, The Meadows Foundation, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University and Todd A. Williams Family Foundation. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab’s journalism.